Discernment – An important tool to have

After reading the title I guess you may be saying “oh wow she has gone spiritual or churchy on us”. Desperate times like these call for real measures to be taken.

Whenever you turn on the news stations or go on the internet you see headlines like “divorced after X weeks of marriage”, “Jack beats up Jill” “Jane gets married to John a week after Sam”. “Sue cheats on Billy”. It just feels like one of all those soap opera’s. Hence, the importance of discernment can not be overemphasized.

Discernment is the ability to perceive, uncover and bring to light that which is hidden. If you read my last post “The marriage company” we established that most people seem to change after they get married and that it might have been that they were pretending to be nice or it could also be something that happened unconsciously too.

Whatever the scenario may be, we need to be able to discern or read in between the lines. My husband says he Knows when people are lying. He says when you ask them a question and they want to lie, their eyes roll upwards and move to the right. I know it sounds funny and it may be true. However; there are people who have mastered the art of lying and deception such that they lie spontaneously. In fact they can even scale through the lie detector or the polygraph test. The question is if you come across such a person, what will you do or how will you know if the person is being real or fake?

The bible says “the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). With God’s spirit fully operational in your life you will be able to accurately discern between good and evil. Now am not saying you will begin to see men with horns or women with claws (do not rule it out though LOL) but you will get to a point were in as much as you LOVE this person you may begin to feel uneasy. You know the feeling you get when you feel like there is just more to this person than meets the eyes – trust your senses and let go.

Also you may be thinking that the ability to discern is to be used just for picking out a spouse on the contrary it can be applied to all aspects of our lives. Haven’t heard about kids that were seemingly perfect, had straight A’s, went to church, came from good homes etc in a nutshell they had everything going on for them and you wake up one morning to hear that they committed suicide. When things like this happen people begin to wonder what happened but if the kid had someone that had a strong spirit they would have known that something was wrong.

Finally there are many ways in which discernment can be applied in our lives be it our jobs, friends, hmmmm now that’s a touchy subject you know those friends that smile with you and behind your back laugh at you. The ability to discern will shine the light on some really goofy friends so you will know how to compose your self around them.

I’d like to stop here because I can go on an on But this is about marriage right? I would encourage everyone to build up their spirit man so that when you are faced with certain situations, you would not necessarily be waiting on someone to tell you what to do but you would either know what to do or have an idea on what to do.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this. I look forward to learning from you.

Discernment: the ability to determine the real condition of a thing, person or situation. It is drills through the razzmatazz, the glitz, the turmoil, or the dark clouds and strikes at the core. ‘My sheep hear my voice , and I know them, and they follow me’ -John 10:27. May our choice of life partners be strengthened through discernment, the pressures not withstanding. I heard a story of a lady who married without discernment. She had met her husband in church. As a Christain, since sex before marriage was out of the question, she waited. On the night of her wedding, her husband declined sex. For the next six years, he only satisfied himself by looking at her nude form. The husband’s family pressured the lady to get pregnant from ‘outside’. She refused. She could tell no one. She could not run away, for fear of her life. By the sixth year, her husband told her she could leave the marriage.
May the eyes of our heart be enlightened.